Indispensable Party (Sasha McCandless Legal Thriller No. 4) by Melissa F Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

answers, or the person who picks up the
phone has never heard of Celia Gerig.”
    Connelly considered this news. “That’s
not good.”
    “It gets worse. Ben called her
number she’d listed as her home phone and got a recorded message that the
number had been disconnected. Then he got really worried, so he drove over to
the address she’d provided as her residence. He said if she ever lived there,
she’s cleared out. It looks abandoned. He peeked in the front window, and there’s
no furniture. There’s a realtor’s sign stuck in the lawn saying the place is
for rent or sale. He called the realtor, but she hasn’t gotten back to him yet.
Celia Gerig’s gone.”
    “Is anything missing?”
    “Nothing obvious, according to
Ben. He’s still at the office, going through all the files, looking for
something out of place, but, so far, he hasn’t found anything. He had a weekend
shift scheduled to come in tomorrow anyway, so he’s going to go back in the
morning and take another look with fresh eyes.” Grace’s grim voice matched her
expression.
    Connelly and Grace fell silent.
    “And you’re convinced a
competitor is behind this? ViraGene?” Sasha asked.
    “Yes,” they said in unison.
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “It’s them. Who else would it be?”
Grace said, echoing what Tate had said.
    Connelly nodded. “Almost
certainly. Okay, call Ben and tell him Sasha and I will be there first thing in
the morning.”
    “You don’t want me to come?”
Grace’s disappointment was splashed across her face.
    “I need you here to ride herd
over the Human Resources folks.”
    Connelly gave Grace one of his
most heartwarming smiles. It started at the right corner of his mouth and
tugged his lips into a grin. It seemed to ease the sting, and Grace smiled
back.
     

CHAPTER 5
     
    Michel was dying.
He could tell by the foamy, red bubbles of blood that escaped from his lips
with each breath he managed. The stranger had punctured his left lung.
    The stabbing had been swift and
impersonal. A heavy knock at the thick, wooden door. Then, when Michel had
opened the door, in a flash, the man had forced him backward and into the
kitchen of the old stone farmhouse. Once inside, the attacker had produced from
his pocket a curved hunting knife and plunged it into Michel’s chest with no
comment, no fuss. Then he’d wiped his knife on the checkered tea towel hanging
near the sink and had walked out, pulling the door closed behind him.
    Sweating and gasping, as pain
seared through his chest, Michel collapsed into a chair at the table where he’d
eaten breakfast just hours ago and considered his options. He was hours from
the nearest modern medical facility. He would die before he reached care.
    He supposed he could stumble down
the hill to the village below and either die on the rocky path or, if he was
very lucky, on the couch in Docteur Bonnet’s parlor.
    Mais non , Michel decided,
exhaling and spraying blood across the table, he would die here, in the
farmhouse where his grandfather had been born.
    His breaths were coming faster
now and with greater effort. He wished he had time to uncork a bottle of
Cabernet from Monsieur Girard’s vineyard, but he would have to settle for
turning his chair slightly, so he could see the cold, white sky through the
window. He paused to fix in his mind an image of the fields as they looked
during the summer, when the rows of sunflowers turned their faces upward to the
golden sun like a class full of schoolchildren watching their teacher at the
chalkboard.
    As his pulse thudded toward the
finish line, Michel shivered. He stared out the window and considered the
actions that had brought him to this point. Although he didn’t know the man who
had stabbed him, he knew for a certainty why he’d been attacked and left for
dead: the Doomsday virus.
    But, he had known from the beginning
that he was taking a risk by selling the virus to the American. The potential
rewards had made the risk worth